The deal leaves buyers of the small one-bedroom flats – who thought they would be paying just £250 a year in ground rent – locked into bills of up to £8,000 a year and ultimately spiralling to £8m a year over the life of the lease.

Ground rent: ‘We feel like prisoners in our own home’

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The block of 12 flats in Coleshill, Birmingham contains what critics describe as the most egregious leasehold contracts in the UK. Some of the apartments in Blythe Court, identical in size, contain leases where the ground rents are fixed at a modest £12 a year for the life of the lease. But others double every 10 years, with one already at £3,200 and the worst at £8,000.

The soaring ground rents have left buyers of the flats – who originally paid between £50,000 and £100,000 for their homes – with properties they say are now completely unsaleable.

The freeholder who put the ground rents up for auction is Martin Paine, described in a 2016 Commons debate as a “crook” who had “taken lease beyond sleaze”.

The total ground rent roll on the building is £17,000 a year, so the new owner of the freehold will have effectively guaranteed themselves an income of 9.5% a year on their money.

‘Fleecehold’ complaints flood in as residents battle to turn tide

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“Mr Paine perhaps saw the writing on the wall. Having created appalling ground rents at the Blythe Court site they have now dumped their ownership through an auction,” said campaigner Martin Boyd of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership.

The Law Commission, which advises the government on law reform, this week said that leasehold is living “on borrowed time” and that a switch to a system called commonhold may be advisable.